Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life

by Joshua Leifer

From esteemed journalist Joshua Leifer, a definitive look at the history and future of American Jewish identity and community from the tipping point we are living in.

Tablets Shattered is Joshua Leifer’s lively and personal history of the fractured American Jewish present. Formed in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the settled-upon pillars of American Jewish self-definition (Americanism, Zionism, and liberalism) have begun to collapse. The binding trauma of Holocaust memory grows ever-more attenuated; soon there will be no living survivors. After two millennia of Jewish life defined by diasporic existence, the majority of the world’s Jews will live in a sovereign Jewish state by 2050. Against the backdrop of national political crises, resurgent global antisemitism, and the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Leifer provides an illuminating and meticulously reported map of contemporary Jewish life and a sober conjecture about its future.

Leifer begins with the history of Jewish immigrants in America, starting with the arrival of his great-grandmother Bessie from a shtetl in Belarus and following each subsequent generation as it conformed to the prevailing codes of American Jewish life. He then reports on the state of today’s burning Jewish issues. We meet millennial Jewish racial justice organizers, Orthodox political activists, young liberal rabbis looking to “queer” the Torah through exegesis, Haredi men learning full-time at the world’s largest yeshiva, progressive anti-Zionists attempting to separate Judaism from nationalism, and right-wing Israeli public intellectuals beginning to imagine a future without American Jews.

As it traverses today’s Jewish landscape through uncommon personal familiarity with the widest range of Jewish experience, Tablets Shattered also charts the universal quest to build enduring communities amid historical and political rupture.

Genres: Jewish, Nonfiction, History, Judaism, Religion, Audiobook, Politics

415 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2024

Reviews

[Sally Shrem Nardea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a lot of thoughts on this one, but it’s hard for me to give it a rating (edit one week later - 2.5ish rounding up to 3 stars). I found the first 25% or so the most compelling part of the book, but I didn’t realize beforehand how much of it was devoted to Zionism/Israel rather than Judaism in practice as the title and description would otherwise indicate. As any practicing Jew can tell you, the two are closely intertwined with one another, but as I now know from the authors argument, that is precisely part of the problem.

On the Zionism front, because I wasn’t expecting it (partly my fault for not researching much before reading), I was hesitant at first to proceed reading. I’m glad I stuck with it. My belief in the state of Israel is unchanged, but it’s increasingly important as supporters of the state to be more aware of the negatives too, as in, we should not look away from the ongoing violence, as I know many do. This is a controversial book for a reason, but I firmly agree with the author on the need to open these discussions up with Jews from all different backgrounds, and not turn away from the other sides perspective, even if it makes us uncomfortable to confront.

Being raised Sephardic/modern Orthodox, it’s hard to relate to the author’s desire for more belonging in the religion for someone who came from a less observant background. I found it surprising, as I personally battle the opposite — trying to find where I belong if I no longer totally relate to Orthodoxy but find that Conservative and Reform aren’t the answer either. As the book goes on to explain, part of the problem with those denominations and their slow but eventual demise in America is that much of the population identifies as Jewish but observes very little, if at all. This identity, however, is what gets intertwined with Zionism — essentially, you don’t need to observe any laws to be a Zionist, but you can still call yourself part of the tribe. Part of the problem for me in my personal life is that they’re rooted in Ashkenazi history and culture, which makes it difficult to relate to even if I fit better from an observance standpoint, and politically as a progressive/liberal Jew.

Herein also lies one of my main issues with the book - Josh does not once write about Sephardic Jews. This is either an oversight or a deliberate choice. If it’s the former, that’s an incredible lack of research that should have been included in a book about Judaism, particularly one focusing on the population and demographics of Israel (more on that below). If it’s the latter, I suspect it’s because the expulsion of Jews from the Middle Eastern countries surrounding Israel well before 1948 doesn’t serve the narrative of European Jews settling in Israel due to the Holocaust and antisemitism in Europe specifically, which is the backbone of the author’s narrative. This is where I diverge from the author, as I do believe those Jews should have a home in Israel, where they can continue to celebrate and perpetuate their middle-eastern heritage without being called colonizers. This narrative only feeds into the ongoing antisemitism in America and all over the world, with ill-informed people telling Jews to “go back to Europe.” How can we expect non-Jews to empathize with us if our own brothers and sisters don’t acknowledge our existence?

I know Sephardic Jews are a tiny percentage in America, but for a book that spends so much time delving into the rising population in Israel as it’s on track to outpace the Jewish population here, it’s crucial to discuss that in the context of 50%+ of Israeli Jews identifying as Sephardic or Mizrahi, a stark contrast to the population here of 90%+ Ashkenazim, overwhelmingly identifying as conservative and reform (or none). This is a big reason why those denominations are vanishing — for Sephardic Jews, there are essentially no denominations, but it’s closest to Orthodox and expects some form of adherence in America. As reform and conservatives battle for their congregations to merely exist in America today, Sephardim are able thrive as they don’t have to choose a flavor, especially in Israel.

All in all, I think this discourse is important to the future of Judaism. Did I enjoy the book? Kind of, especially the parts about the history of Jews joining liberal causes over the course of the 20th century as that’s always something I’ve been fascinated by (and not exposed to due to the aforementioned Orthodoxy), but I also found myself a bit annoyed by it. And (spoiler alert) by the end, it seems the only antidote to the declining Jewish population in America is stricter religious observance a la Orthodoxy — precisely what I struggle with, but I can’t disagree, it’s clearly the only denomination that continues to thrive in America today, and I think it’s prominence in Israel is inextricably tied to the rising Sephardic population as well. I just wish it had more answers for the liberal Jews it is speaking to.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know Josh. I mean that both literally (we went to college together and share mutual friends) and also figuratively. I’ve long thought that Israel-centrism, Holocaust-centrism and Tikkun Olam-centrism are not a viable basis for Jewish flourishing. I’ve long thought liberal Jews should take a page out of the KJ / Lakewood playbook to see what a thriving community can look like.

Born into Orthodoxy, in a liberal family, I’ve had a more default exposure to Orthodoxy and religious-oriented thick community while also holding various universalist and liberal values and swimming against the political currents of my community. But the feeling of “my community” matters.

I was surprised by his self identification with Jewish Peoplehood and the recognition that such Peoplehood creates an indelible bond with the majority of Jews, who are now in Israel, not America. This is a point my good friend JJ Kimche has made forcefully to me. We, as Jews, have an obligation to care about our co-community members.

Overall there’s a lot to wrestle with. This is a very good book. I’m glad a launch discussion was banned from a leftist bookstore because it creates a permission structure for modern orthodox and Jewish Establishment institutions to bring Leifer in to talk.

Here’s to hoping for a second and enduring set of Tablets. (Why wasn’t that metaphor made?)

[Returnofshaggydog · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointing book that reminds me historically of David Horowitz (former leftist who edited Ramparts) and his departure from the strong and radical Jewish tradition of whom he was a part, and his drift toward a xenophobic, reactionary rightwing. I've read Leifer for a long time from his days at various American Jewish community organs (eg Jewish Currents) and was eager to see his take on the real fractures inside the community I grew up in; instead what I got was a quite reactionary, feelings-based screed against so many of his contemporaries standing very rightly on the shoulders of their Jewish ancestors who said "Never Again". Leifer seems to be ok with it happening again.. as long as it keeps the politesse of what feels within his comfort zone. Incredibly sad to read this especially during these times of need.

[Michael Asen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. While it is written as an examination of current Jewish culture and the the inter-relationship of the American Jewish religion with Zionism, it is integrated with Liefer's personal journey. As he glides through modern American Judaism he examines every aspect from orthodox culture (the section on Lakewood, New jersey is worth the price of admission) to Jewish LGBT culture.
Liefer is a progressive and his views of Israel , where I believe he is now living, is critical . His final chapter is a reaction to Israel's conduct post October 7th and it's very thoughtful. I am perhaps of the last generation of Conservative Jews raised by Jewish parents who were first generation and put the interests of Israel side by side with our own country. I certainly did not, and my children have fallen further still. That is essentially at the center of this examination. A lot to think about here and I'm grateful for the approach that Liefer took. I'm sure many will find his progressive values incompatible with Israel's partnership with the United States. But that is the point of the book. It is a partnership that is at best, fractured.

[Reed Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sympathetic to the narrative and even enjoyed (!) the last ~70 pages of this but I find the personal essay-qua-"history" thing extremely grating. If I had wanted to know about Joshua Leifer's lived experience I would have simply asked Yosef

[Margaret Weinberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were lots of things I liked about this book — though it took me two months to read so kind of a slow burn! I thought the strongest parts of the book were the ones that felt like memoir or theorizing (especially about the future of American Jewish life), some of the more historical or sociological parts felt honestly simplified. I am not sure he knows about Southern Jews! Overall lots of food for thought and it challenged how I think about many Jewish things.

[Arundi McNally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read. It's well-intentioned, to a point, but like so much written by Jewish authors, people outside the tribe don't merit discussion beyond the insistent characterization of the rest of humanity being intransigent anti-semites. It did have one major surprise for this reader: young Jews are tired of Israel! One cited therein said all he wants is a life not somehow connected to the Jewish state. That's news to this Christian.

When I say not an easy read, I don't mean obscure or pedantic -- well, it is a little pedantic -- but it's monotone and devoid of humor or even irony. It was informative about the schism between the generation of Israel worshipers and why they are that way, and the young ones who just want a life without a Jewish-supremacist state killing people. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to consider they won't have to worry about that if the reigning social implosion continues. The government's disdain for the hostages is shredding the social contract. Oren Kessler in Palestine 1936 cited a British official during the Mandate who said that if Zionists form a state, they will devour themselves. They do display a penchant for killing. Who will they kill when they're done with the Arabs? That would be a subject for a book.

[Sophia Kreitman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly the book I needed in this moment. I really felt like I learned something new on every page. I often had to re-read each page, to make sure I was fully grasping everything I was reading.
As someone who has been struggling to understand how the American Jewish community has come to be what it is today, Leifer does a great job at setting the scene and laying out how we went from immigrants working in sweatshops on the Lower East Side, to the people we are today, fractures and all.
I was particularly interested in this book because of how he describes the American Jewish relationship with Israel, and how that has evolved over the decades. I’m always fascinated by the structure of denominations and Leifer breaks down how each faction has come to be, and where do we go from here.
I have been talking this book up to almost everyone I have encountered, and can see it being a text I return to for many years to come.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so ready to hate this book. I had my skeptical glasses on, my knives out. Knowing Leifer's involvement with IfNotNow and other anti-Zionist organizations, I was ready to discover and expose his hypocrisy, his internalized antisemitism.

This book was not what I expected.

Leifer does an excellent job critiquing American Jewry, from the institutions to the movements. He sees and explicates the flaws on all ends of the political and religious spectrum, even (and most impressively) his own. He rightfully holds the Jewish far left to account for their abandonment of their Israeli siblings, and mainstream American Jewry for its unwillingness to publicly criticize the Israeli government for its excessive oppression of Palestinians through the years. He's not in any way even-handed, but he is fair.

A really impressive work.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

A commendable book that asks all the right questions even if it doesn’t have answers ready. What the book does very well is grant the sincerity and good-faith of arguments of many contrasting viewpoints, even as he critiques those world-views, including ones he’s personally held. If nothing else, it is a challenge to those invested in American Jewish life to think seriously about what an intellectually consistent and compelling Jewish life in America can and should be in this period of tremendous upheaval.

[Leib Mitchell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book Review
Tablets Shattered
2/5 stars
"Expatiation by an uncentered quibbler"

Of the book:

-345 pages of prose over 9 chapters plus Foreword and Afterword.
-31 pages per, on average.
-Index is present, but only so-so
-Bibliography is mostly interviews and newspaper articles. (It does make sense if the purpose of this book is to capture current trends.)
-Not a single table of numbers / graph/ pie chart
-Bibliography is not enumerative, likely because it would show how few books went into this book
-Book can be read out of order
*******
This author is pretty dislikable, and I can say that with a bit more thought I would not have purchased this book.


×××Books such as this that talk about "trends"  are boring, boring, boring. They are full of stock phrases such as "undercurrents" of history or things happening "just below the surface" (p.78)--whatever that could mean. And what makes it so bad is that the author is speculating about such "undercurrents" that happened a quarter of a century before he was even born.

1. At the time of publication, author did not have a job anywhere (other than writing some articles for some publications), and as you read back into the book he didn't have one 10 years ago. It came out that his father is a physician, so he is probably yet another of these parentally financed radicals.

2. He has this type of anguish that only bored, affluent, well-loved white people can have. (People who work from sun up to sundown to make a living dream no dreams and nurse no grievances.) So, that explains to me how he is/was part of IfNotNow (This is the group of Jews that said kaddish for dead Arab terrorists)--And this is in between living in study programs in Israel and college campuses, with NO JOB.

People who are engaged in building a life don't spend years on end anguishing about what they *should* be, as opposed to those who go about matter of factly being what they are.

He also mentions several no-go names such as: Daniel Boyarin, Peter Beinart, Noam Chomsky, Shaul Magid, Judith Butler - - and it lets me know where he is coming from.

3. He over and over again repeats the bromides of Orthodox people about how "coherent" they are as opposed to the other branches that are not (p.131). BO-RING ba'al teshuva party line repetition.

For somebody who is observant/involved in a Jewish community (like the present writer), most of these observations will seem quite trivial. (It is interesting that the author comes from the side of a returnee to Judaism and not somebody who is from an observant family that moved to non-observance.)

The book is essentially a series of expository/thought essays stapled together, with scant to no attention to quantitative details.

For example: The author says that the American Jewish population is 6 million and Israel's population is 7 million (p. 210). But, Pew research had it at 7.5 million in the United States even 4 years ago--which the author might have found had he actually looked anything up.

×××In reality, a lot of these ideas/talking points can be fit into a current events book - but they are very old.

1. "What happens to the Diaspora?" The interaction between Israeli /Diaspora Jewry is very old.

Point 1: Jews have lived much longer in the Diaspora in larger numbers for much longer than they have in Israel proper. (Almost all of the primary Jewish classical sources -- from the Talmud through to the Mishna Berurah was the work of Diaspora Jews.)

The Diaspora has been with us for over 20 centuries and if you believe in the Lindy effect it will keep on being with us for just as long.

Point 2: If the author had bothered to run some numbers, he might have noticed that: the net migration of Jews into Israel is about 18,500 (out of a population of 7.2 million Jews, with 8.5 million in the Diaspora), and at that rate it would take about 459 years for the Diaspora to be emptied out.

Point 3: After the Babylonian conquest, when they were invited to return to Israel most Jews stayed right where they were. So, there is precedent for people to stay where they are.

And, even if it is that the majority of Jews live in Israel, so what?

The majority of them are not Orthodox, but hat has nothing to do with people that live an Orthodox life.

2. "Reform and Conservative are going to fall off the Earth, and Orthodoxy is going to take over the world in just one or two generations (Blah blah blah.)" In reality: Reform is actually older than Haredism and has much larger numbers. The largest growth in Jewish people is unaffiliated ones-- And anybody who is on the inside knows that Haredim are exceptionally efficient at replenishing the ranks of non-religious Jews.

******
The author's comes across as clueless in at least 3 additional ways:

1. (p.157) He seems to see white supremacists everywhere as anti-Semites (the way a lot of Jewish people do) while ignoring that the number of black anti-semites is easily 10,000 times greater in number. Patriot Front and KKK together are less than 4,000 people.

2. His take on conversion is quite clueless. (And I do know a little about this topic.) There are numbers from all of the major movements that can give one an idea how many people convert--if the author just takes the trouble to look them up.

3. There are not that many interviews with actual people. This book could have been a lot more informed/realistic/interesting if he actually  had some extended interviews that talked to people with well chosen questions. It's like the interviewees got a cameo, and then the author went right back to babbling.
*******

NOT RECOMMENDED.

Quotes.

209. Anger, after all, is a modality of attachment

214. Our homeland, the text.

Vocabulary

hester panim ("hidden face," Jewish version of Deism)
horatory
telos


P. 228. Misuse of the word "alight"

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Controversial books are going to be controversial, I guess. And this one was controversial in a couple different ways.

The most public controversy had to do with the book debut. Author Joshoua Leifer was “cancelled,” to put it roughly, for wanting to sit down with a Zionist rabbi in conversation. A since-fired, presumably anti-Zionist employee of the Brooklyn bookstore cancelled the event without notice, saying something to the effect of not wanting to give Zionists a platform. Leifer, who himself is critical of Zionism, was expecting more pushback from “American Jewish establishment,” like synagogues.

Which leads to the other big controversy, that Leifer, a mid-to-younger millennial, counts himself as being raised by the “American Jewish Establishment,” and uses this book to rail a bit like a prophet about what has gone wrong. I’m not sure the “Establishment” has come under such scrutiny before, because the younger generations, the ones most critical of the status quo, have just come of age. (Let’s keep pretending I’m still young, self. :P)

I’m a geriatric, Reagan-baby (first term) millennial to Leifer’s “born the year before Rabin died” millennial. (Which is a ridiculous and self-indulgent way to say that we’re roughly 11 years apart in age.) And I spent a lot of this book getting distracted and trying to square Leifer’s Jewish upbringing with my own. It’s a moot point, really. We’re not going to have exactly the same experiences. Our backgrounds are far from polar opposites, but there are definitely some significant differences.

I don’t necessarily find fault with the crux of his arguments, but I think he’s missing nuance (sometimes. Other times, it’s definitely there.) In essence, American Jews, particularly his/my ancestors escaping violence and lack of freedom in the Pale of Settlement, largely eschewed their religious ties in order to fit in with America. The country's mores were oversimplified and seen as “exceptional” for the general lack of state-sponsored antisemitism. With generational time, of course, cultural ties to Yiddishkeit also lessened or became kitsch. The question arose by the mid-20th century: what is it to be an American Jew? First, we reeled from the Holocaust, in which our direct, or more often indirect family members were persecuted and slaughtered. Zionism—broadly the belief in a Jewish homeland in our ancestral territory, though strains of Zionism in practice have muddled the issue—swelled in popularity, particularly as European refugees headed eastward, and medinat Yisrael was created as a nation-state in 1948.

Israel and Zionism became, and arguably remain, the lynchpin of the “Establishment.” The “Establishment” here largely refers to the world of Jewish American nonprofits ostensibly created to serve American Jewish interests. But as the decades have drudged on, a deeper divide has grown between American Jews generally and the people purporting to serve them, particularly when it comes to treatment of Palestinians and the Israel government's right-wing march.

“The Establishment” sticks to a narrow, hyper-defensive view of Israeli policy, which alienates many people from affiliating with the oldest fully entrenched cultural American Jewish organizations. In that vein, many younger and not so young people have started to create new ones, from religious to cultural to political. Some of them, to me, feel like well-needed and thoughtful challenges to stagnation and groupthink. J-Street, T'ruah and Zioness are some of my favorite haunts as a liberal Zionist. My own rabbis, I’d argue, while not officially trying to move the needle, exist in this milieu of always challenging us to keep our minds open and grapple with uncomfortable truths, within Judaism, America and the world at large.

Other responses to disillusionment with Israel (and or its policies) amount to purity tests and more one-dimensional groupthink. My own tolerance for the smug, hypocritical and cannibalistic trappings of the far left is a fair bit lower than Leifer’s. Though part of finishing this book after October 7 is that he’s had to grapple with some of their antisemitism. (Meanwhile, being even more unhealthily glued to Twitter than usual for this past year, I’ve had go grapple with the moral failings of the Anti-Defamation League, which didn’t surprise Leifer at all. :/ It surprised me, because I guess I was stuck in the rosy narrative about their founding. Anywo.)

Leifer’s prognosis about American Judaism as we shuffle into what I’ll paraphrase as irrelevance is pretty bleak. Our relationship with Israel see-saws between blind support and what appears to be either disgust or apathy, and Israel cares even less about us. (See who Trump put forward as the latest ambassador to the country.) Israel, by definition, is the center of the Jewish world, because in a couple decades it’s where most of the Jewish people will live. Israeli Judaism also has a distinct sense of identity within nationalism and modern Hebrew culture, whereas, as Leifer argues, American Jews have Seth Rogan movies. :P (You know you're a younger millenial Jew when you can get away with not mentioning Mel Brooks or Larry David.) Our progressive and predominant religious observance is incredibly depleted, “liberal American Judaism” in politics is largely split from any sort of particularism, Orthodoxy is (small and) vibrant but dangerously parochial. Our strength, Leifer argues, is in our diversity of experiences. And maybe we need to mix and match to find a, I guess, healthy and authentic Judaism.

This might be the part of the review where I have to take a step back from the eagle-eye view. Griping that we’re too much of this or not enough of that feels a bit inhuman after awhile. I suppose, like many people (and maybe I’ve been conditioned by “Establishment” thinking to a degree) I worry about trends and about the group as a whole. But in a world of extreme politics and demagogues, maybe I like to take a peek under the curtain, too. Maybe there’s meaning in the small little communities like my synagogue, in Israel, in the United States, even in the rest of topically irrelevant diaspora. Is this not meaning, and, hopefully, if people stick with it, a sense of community?

Overall I think this book gives readers an incredible amount to grapple with, and all from the most modern and prescient perspective. I only quibble with Leifer when he makes occasional sweeping statements without considering more nuanced realities. He’s more left to the left than me, for example, and I don’t think he considers Jewish anti-Communist sentiment in this country stemming from the reality of Soviet show trials targeting Jews, refuseniks in the gulag, and Stalin’s purported plan for more ethnic cleansing. Most American Jews probably have personal as well as philosophical ties to Israel, though it’s a sliding scale (I’m on the lower end, even. :/ Not sure if he's intending to call me out on something.) I would also argue that some of Leifer’s accounting of Israeli history is oversimplified. But I also think, like a lot of Jews, Leifer is grappling with how to hold the complexities of two peoples in his heart at the same time.

Final quibble: I think that, ignoring Seth Rogen, American Jewish arts and literature actually means something, even beyond the hey day of Saul Bellow and Cynthia Ozick. If this is me trying to supersede my own, weird literary canon onto my national-religious culture, then so be it. :P I remain grateful to live on the Jewish Book Council website, hee.

To all of my Brooklyn anti-Zionist Jews to my “Establishment” middle-America synagogue Jews, I urge you to give this book a try. This is an important struggle to bring to our collective conversation.

[Eitan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I basically agree with all of these takes and share these opinions, yet also learned a lot. I liked the blend of memoir, cultural critique, and history, and it was especially resonant because Joshua Leifer comes from just about exactly the same background as me, just ten years older.

Currently my only gripes are the almost complete 100% focus on Ashkenazi life and the occasionally insufficiently sourced claims. For a book that focuses on varied Jewish identities, approaches to Jewish life, institutions, and demographic shifts, the fact that the word Sephardic might not even show up once feels like both a massive oversight and just strange. As for sources, looking at the notes, I really felt an appreciation for the amount of the interviewing work that went into this book. That being said, there were definitely a few times where Leifer made a big factual claim that, when I turned to the notes, I found without citation.

Criticisms aside, I found it a good read and a salient analysis of the direction the American Jewish world has been moving in. The points he raises feel all the more true today than when he wrote them.

On another note: I have lost track of the number of books about some crisis in Jewish life where the takeaway is return to traditional observance and text study…

[Jonathan Isaac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will be thinking about this one for a while. Highly recommend this book to any Jewish millennial who feels that they don’t quite connect to Jewish tradition, but also want something richer and more communal in Jewish life. Leifer never conceals his hand, or his angle—which I appreciate, since we never feel like we’re getting the wool pulled over our eyes. Leifer is up front about his commitments, his grappling with contradiction and paradox, and also isn’t afraid to spar with the accepted wisdom of the progressivism. I don’t agree with him all the time, but I appreciate his candor and the depth of his investigation into the American Jewish century.

[Christopher Hutson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a helpful map of the terrain of diverse expressions of Jewishness in America today along with an elegant account of the history of how it all developed. Leifer describes each group sympathetically and with a clear-eyed accounting of their strengths and weaknesses. Every page rings true, and it is so helpful to see it all laid out in one panorama. Leaders of any religious tradition might well benefit from a probing analysis of what it means to maintain a meaningful religious identity in an ever-changing, secular world.

[SheReaders Book Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots to think about in this meandering exploration of the evolution of the Jewish American experience. I learned some things. I think it lacks a little in the areas of deep thought and wisdom that come only with age. I do wish he woulda left Sarah Silverman out of this, or at least been nicer when telling her story. She’s a cool Jewish chick who has made many of us Jewish chicks feel that being Jewish is cool. She’s done more for continuity than some of these “scholars” named by the admiring author. If you’re looking for something Jewish lite after reading this tome, might I suggest The Bedwetter.

[Matt Kreitman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history and analysis on American Jewish life. I didn’t love the closing argument but that is most likely because he wrote the book for a wider audience. Highly recommend for those experiencing the failures of modern day Jewish American institutions.

[Rachel Greenspan · Rating 4 out of 5]

really couldn’t decide how to feel and that’s also how it feels to be a Jew rn. reallly effective and moving ending, even though more conservative than I think I expected it to be for whatever reason.


“A living community is a community that finds things worth fighting over. When we cease to fight, we begin to die.”

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

At this point in the 21st century, many Jews in the diaspora no longer believe “Israel can do no wrong,” but the author does not want to give up on the place, or at least the idea. Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel allowed American Jews to cling to a motherland identity in the way that other hyphenated Americans (Italian-Americans, Asian-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc) were able to maintain some cultural integrity while in the melting pot. And of course, in the shadow of the Holocaust it was seen as an insurance plan, a place to go in case of future mortal threat.

However, as Israel becomes more right wing and more theocratic, there is increasing threat that Jewish identity and ritual can get fashioned into something hard, violent, chauvinist and racist (as hardcore Christianity has done with the United States throughout its own history). The ideas of strength and self-reliance can make it act in ways where it is difficult for the actor to know with any precision where their motivations fall on the spectrum ranging from strategic to impulsive. Much like the United States! As of this moment in 2025, the two countries seems more intertwined than ever, both influencing each other to become more autocratic to their people and less cooperative with other countries. After 9/11 the United States became a “You’re either for us or against us” nation, and Israel had become the same way, arguably around the time of the 2nd Intifada, if not the 1st.

The author discusses at length the difficulty that Jews may have speaking with other Jews how they feel about Israel. The oldest generations which still bear the trauma of the Holocaust, and their children who remember the Jewish pride following 1967, may not be receptive to younger generations who question the choices made by Israel’s 21st Century leaders. The reflex to call such questions or doubts anti-Semitic are very strong and tends to discourage curiosity, free thought, and possibly empathy. A person who invests in group identity will naturally fear being described as a “bad Jew”.

The author explains how the success of American Jews brought its eventual decline. America benefitted greatly from this influx of workers who then worked to improve the conditions of American labor, which enabled America to become a prosperous and more equitable nation. However, through this work they also became Americans. Reform Judaism, which is most associated with American Jews, is seen by many in the Jewish world as a gateway out of Judaism, a watered down version, even if it does make some form of religious observance possible for people who may have other priorities, and in the U.S. may attract a wide variety of people wishing to convert to Judaism. But if these converts are seen as somehow less than by the state of Israel or the non-North American diaspora, does that mean that Jews elsewhere consider themselves a separate race where you’re either born with it (but can lose it through disregard) or not (so why should someone born outside of it even try)? And as American Jews became a model minority, those who drifted to the right wing espoused views that other American minorities (usually the darker skinned) must not have had the same ‘inherent’ qualities that Jews had, which is also a racial assertion. These prejudices or fears of The Other may not be readily apparent to a group that identifies with its own history of oppression, but may be seen quite easily by groups (especially those seen as The Other) for whom oppression is palpable daily in the present.

In recent years as organizations like Black Lives Matter have called Israel an apartheid state, there has been outcry that Jews were an essential part of the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, this is true, but it may be worth noting that they tended to come from predominantly left wing, acculturated homes with histories of labor activism. An overlooked fact is that for many American Jews (the more Orthodox, the more professional class, the more centrist or conservative), involvement in Civil Rights was not respectable. The more conservative Jews, more Orthodox, or more successful would have been more likely to put their weight behind the 1970s movement to help Soviet Jewry escape the USSR. These are the Jews who believed in putting Jewish interests first. In the US as in Israel, the seeds of today’s powerful, fundamentalist right wing were sown in the 1970s. This inward turn is manifest in the idea that the state of Israel is the most important thing in Jewish life. I have seen families fall apart (often along generational lines) over this issue as the Gaza war has stretched on. Or friends and family ripped apart as liberal Jews are appalled that their loved ones voted for Donald Trump because he’s “good for Israel” while still acknowledging that he could be bad for America, the country they live in.

The author goes into detail about J Street, a liberal PAC devoted to promoting liberal democracy in Israel and a two-state solution, which was attacked, even neutered, by the center and right wing Jewish establishment as being “anti-Jewish”. The author also details ways that the Christian right wing in the US has made Israel into a huge wedge issue, coopting claims of Jewish vicitimhood and weaponizing accusations of anti-Semitism for its own gains. How then, does a left wing Jew not let the actions of a hard right government in Israel make him lose his literal faith and also the faith in said nation? He details his own reinvestment in his religious life, trying to become more Jewish in his concerns and actions, while making sure those actions are about activism, community, healing the world, concern for social justice, etc. He does not let those on the right, in government or in religion, dictate to him what constitutes a “good Jew”. He sounds like he has found a solid middle ground for himself, and this book feels like he was showing the proof of a complicated math equation for how he got there. I mean that in the best way. He explained the history, the currents, the contradictions, the multiple voices and allegiances within a community and within one’s own mind. It is nice to see that a healthy balance can be achieved through hard but worthwhile work.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tablet's Shattered is a reflection on the failures and future of Judaism. The 20th century saw the center of gravity of Jewish life shift from Europe to America, both due to the integrationist success of Jewish immigrants and the catastrophe of the Shoah. But by 2000, mainstream Jewish institutions had been rudderless for decades and there were roughly as many Jews in Israel as America. The next few decades will see the numbers shift only further towards Israel. Given the nationalistic and overtly genocidal character of Israeli politics, that leaves liberal American Jews in an uncomfortable place.

Leifer's personal journey traces out the four quadrants of the Jewish future he discusses. He was born in 1995 and grew up in mainstream Judaism in New Jersey. As a reaction against his strongly Republican Bush-era public high school, he became an antiwar activist, lived in Israel for (at least) a year, and worked with a variety of political groups he deems "progressive prophets", organizations like Jewish Voices for Peace, If Not Now, and Never Again Action, which break with the Zionist monolith of mainstream Judaism. He married a woman in an ultra-Orthodox family. And for his own interests and the sake of the book, has explored alternative Judaisms being developed as Queer and syncretistic practices.

By far the strongest part of the book is his description of the Haredi community of Lakewood, a 130000 strong Haredi community centered on Beth Medrash Govoha (BMG), where 800 students partake in traditional Talmudic study under the auspicious of the Rabbi Kotler's descendents. The Orthodox, Lakewood being just one sect, have much to be proud of: a vibrant and authentic spiritual tradition; a robust social safety net, and a community of trust so strong that children run from house to house and people park at BMG with their keys in their cars, so that whoever they've blocked in can rearrange the parking lot and escape.

There are also things to be skeptical of. Orthodoxy is not a commitment for the faint of heart, requiring a life centered around Torah, prayer, and community, as well as familiarity with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The Haredi exist inside, but almost entirely separate from mainstream society, a profoundly antimodern culture. The state of their schools for anything beyond the Talmud is atrocious. Boys graduate from high school unable to write a 5 paragraph essay in English, do more than basic arithmetic, or be familiar with basic scientific concepts like molecules. Women get a better education, since they have to work to support the family, along with doing all the household tasks in a strongly patriarchal culture.

Frankly, as much as Leifer seems Ultra-Orthodoxy as the best alternative, I can't see it as anything but a cult. The social harms are too high, ranging from everything from shunning of "deviants" to concealment of sexual abuse scandals that likely rival the Catholic Church (patriarchs gonna patri). The visible Jewish scandal that comes to mind are Ultra-Orthodoxy rabbis who have a sideline in kidnapping and torturing husbands until they agree to divorce their wives, since the husband's consent is a halachically necessary to a Jewish divorce. Conditions under which consent is obtained are not discussed. Ultimately, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish future is the Amish, but they can use cars six days of the week.

The discussion of the Jewish political alternatives are the second strongest part of the book, drawing from Leifer's extensive work with these groups and a variety of Leftist publications. These groups are small, under-resourced, but scrappy. And frankly, authentically in line with my existing political and identarian commitments. However, Leifer is also right to note that coalitional politics is hard, and fighting the global right wing tide even harder. More fatally, groups focused on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are as tied to Israel as the Zionist groups, just on the other side of the intellectual fence. This movement is fundamentally parasitic.

Alternative Judaism can create moving experiences, but it is deeply unclear if they can sustain communities. Clever spiritual events are Torah by way of Burning Man, just another option in an American landscape of non-committed partial believers. It's hard to take partial Judaism seriously when Commandment One is Thou Shalt Have No Other God Before Me.

Talking about the failures of mainstream Judaism is necessary in this book, but honestly, if you've set foot in a Reform temple in the past decade, you already know. Leifer excoriates mainstream Jewish leaders as complacent, uncreative, and unlearned, and he's not wrong. However, Eric Alterman covered the creation and fossilization of the Zionist consensus far more thoroughly in We Are Not One. Leifer's one contribution is to note the inclusion of LGBT rabbis in mainstream denominations through the 90s and 00s, and the acid irony that having fought so hard to be let inside, they may have the task of turning out the lights.

Finally, much of the ethnic background, on his great-grandmothers, is perhaps a necessary affirmation of Jewish bona-fides, but also largely redundant. I know a lot less about Judaism than Leifer, but I do know more about foresight than he does. I can sense the outlines of solid work on foresight in here, and a necessary one, but Leifer is too close to the subject to step back and see the full shape of he what he wants to describe and manifest.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

extra star because it's quite well researched - but the general takeaway seems to be that judaism first udnerwent a halacha -> zionism transition and then a zionism -> "liberalism" (and implied antizionism) reframing, and in this flexibility accidentally became a strong option for anyone seeking to redefine it in any way for their own benefit, eg in identity politics/crises

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating read... Millennial Joshua Leifer has his own personal family story as the backdrop of describing the American Jewish experience in the 20th century - characterized by three strands - Americanism, Zionism and Liberalism. His father's grandma barely made it alive to American shores on the cusp of WWII. Growing up in a conservative household where he attended until middle school, a Jewish day school (now years later, closed). Leifer struggles where he actually belongs-- centering his life on Jewish practice (shomer shabbat, wearing kippah, observant) and yet at the same time, fully liberal, devoted to anti-racism, feminism, and especially, calling out against occupation in Israel -- in other words, a young man dedicated to living a Torah life and living by progressive values. This book was maybe his own personal quest to answer his question, "Is it possible to live a life defined by Judaism, and at the same time, guided by progressive values?"

Here are some fascinating gleanings from the book: Zionism especially after the 1967 Six Day War, often served as the religion or central focus of American Jews in the latter part of the 20th Century. As the Intifadas occurred in Israel and occupation became untenable, violent and oppressive, the uneasy alliance between Zionism and Liberalism was shattered with a generational shift of young American Jews speaking out and even non-identifying with Israel. We could see this in the rise of the young Jewish protest groups, If Not When and Jewish Voice For Peace. If Israel doesn't bind us in Jewish institutions, what is the future of American Judaism? According to Leifer, there is call for alarm... as mainstream demographic studies have shown. He delineates four paths moving forward in this century- the growth of separatist orthodoxy that shuns the outside world but offers intense, Torah-centric community, Neo-Reform -- the reworking and rewriting of old texts to fit the modern world, innovative, open to all, the prophetic protest movements of groups such as If Not When and Judaism as giving donations to groups as a form of affiliation. All in all, Leifer sees the most potential in traditional Judaism which is surprising given his Israel activism and other progressive values even if he feels fairly certain that American Judaism in this Century especially for mainstream, non-orthodox institutions, is on the road to extinction.

He writes:
"Our liberal capitalist culture celebrates boundless growth, infinite choice, and instant gratification. Traditional Judaism, by contrast, teaches the merits of long term commitment, patience and restraint, and contentment with one's lot.... Progressives talk frequently about community, but we also want to feel free to opt out of what doesn't speak to us or what seems inconvenient, archaic or demanding. We say often we're proud to be Jewish, yet we want our Jewishness not to require too much or even ask anything of us at all.. For all our posturing about mutual aid and ending capitalism, when was the last time any of us gave ma'aser, tithing the religiously required tenth of our salary?"

I resonated with this book because of my own struggle to find a place -- concerned about occupation and oppression of Palestinians, but feeling tribal and defining myself a Zionist (not at home with an If Not When or in mainstream, Israel-can-d0-no-wrong spaces), wanting deeply the kind of community our Orthodox relatives have but too questioning and unable to give up my progressive, liberal values for the sake of "community". I wonder if many of us are struggling to find our Jewish American home.

[Sam McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

For many decades, American Jewish identity was defined by its attachment to liberalism, Zionism, secular Yiddish culture, and the relaxed religious practice of Conservative and Reform congregations. But these tablets of American Jewish life, according to Joshua Leifer, have been shattered: non-Orthodox synagogue membership is in decline, the secular Yiddish culture of the early 20th-century immigrants has faded into kitsch, and Israel has proven itself utterly indefensible—at least according to the liberal principles still professed by the vast majority of American Jews. The pillars of American Jewish identity stand on shaky ground.

Leifer is spot-on in his analysis of American Jewry’s existential dilemma. And he is correct that, going forward, the most meaningful way for American Jews to affirm their identity and community—if they choose to do so—is not a recommitment to the State of Israel but to the actual Jewish religion, something with which many Jewish people, myself included, have largely forgone. That religious practice is not necessarily a prerequisite to being Jewish in America speaks to the strong cultural, social and economic ties that once bound American Jewry together. But these ties, according to Leifer, are coming loose. Religion, he suggests, is the answer.

I’ll preface the rest of my review by saying that I’m happy that there exist people like Joshua Leifer, observant but progressive, maintaining the rituals of traditional Judaism while fiercely rejecting the provincialism and blind Israelism that often accompany Orthodoxy. But that doesn’t mean that Leifer’s book isn’t a frustrating read. This is a manifesto and it suffers from the same fury, haughtiness, and single-mindedness that one would find in any such tract. Leifer exhausts the reader with a sanctimoniousness informed not only by religious righteousness but also by leftist indignation.

This might, at first, seem an unlikely combination. But squint and Leifer’s path to Orthodox Judaism doesn’t look too different from the trajectory of countless intellectuals of his cohort. Burned by Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential campaigns and exasperated by the dogmas of Obama- and Trump-era activism, Leifer and many of his peers have embraced—some more earnestly than others—various ideologies espousing traditionalism and anti-egalitarianism. The author still proudly identifies with the progressive left, of course, but he is forthright in the fact that leftist anti-Semitism, particularly in the wake of October 7th, has alienated him from his comrades.

I could nitpick a number of issues with Leifer’s book: his constant, half-baked swipes at “capitalism,” whatever that means, belie the intellectual heft of this book, and his obsession with the centrism of obsolete Jewish institutions would give a reader the impression that Jews are anything other than one of the most reliably Democratic constituencies in America. But these moments stand out precisely because they are the rare instances in which I disagree with the author. It’s rare to read a book so willing to dwell in uncomfortable truths. Leifer understands that Israel, in its incessant and enthusiastic destruction of Palestinian life, is hurtling into the moral abyss; but he also understands that Israel, by virtue of its growing population and the dilemmas plaguing American Jewry, will continue to cement itself as the global capital of Jewish life. This is a disturbing thought for any Jewish person with a conscience. I’m grateful to Joshua Leifer for making me confront it.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

**.5

There are some interesting observations, but overall this isn't a great book. Leifer tries to categorize and diagnose the various streams of contemporary American Judaism, but his analysis is too coloured by his own personal experiences and feelings. It's of course 100% valid for him to express his own opinions, but not when he uses them to mischaracterize historical facts or misrepresent the opinions of others. Disagree? By all means. Distort their message to fit your worldview? Absolutely not.

I actually found the autobiographical parts the most interesting, and relatable. We all start out with the baggage of our parents, environment, and community norms, and then at a certain point are confronted with the decision to stick with it or rebel. As a teenager he dove straight in to the stereotypical rebellious phase, consumed with smug self-righteousness, reductionist thinking, and performative outrage. Thankfully he outgrew that phase, and as with most people, settled into a much more conservative lifestyle after maturing a bit. A predictable story, but it's well told and the transitions are well thought out and he doesn't shy away from confronting the inherent conflicts in his choices regarding religion, politics, community, and lifestyle.

The other parts of the book I found interesting was getting the perspective of the younger generation. He was born one year before Rabin was killed, I was already a young adult in grad school and attended the peace rally in Tel Aviv. So events that I personally lived through are just historical things he read about, like the Holocaust is for me. For instance, I still view Netanyahu as something of an aberration to the traditional Labor led governments, but in his reality Likud has always been in charge. So of course our views towards Israel and Zionism are going to differ.

He's a lot weaker when trying to describe things outside of his personal experience. He mangles 9/11 and the Bush Administration, and the response of the Jewish community to the Iraq war, etc. He desperately tries to shoehorn his four categories of American Jews into earlier events, and gets a lot of it wrong. It also never occurs to him that there may be American Jews who came from places other than Eastern Europe. I don't think that Sephardic or Mizrachi Jews merit a single mention in the whole book. Which at best is an honest oversight, but more likely they were too inconvenient to talk about because they don't fit neatly into his four categories. And their existence in Israel (and elsewhere in the Middle East and Levant) disrupts the popular settler-colonial narrative, so best to ignore their existence and hope no one notices.

In the final chapter he finally gets around to October 7 and the Gaza war. He appears to be genuinely shocked when the leftists he thought were his friends and colleagues turned out to be antisemitic. How he managed to not notice this in 2014 when he was demonstrating alongside them is a mystery. Like, what did he think they meant when they quoted the Hamas charter and called to Globalize The Intifada? He also carries on throughout the book about his opposition "The Occupation," but seems to never realize that he's only talking about the 1967 borders, but they mean ALL of Israel, and by extension all Jews everywhere. At some point he's going to need to reconcile this disconnect; maybe in his next book he'll have evolved again and hang a picture of Ben Gvir in his living room.

[Len Rudner · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a short story, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel recounts the legend of a rabbi who, when his village was in danger, would go to a secret place in the forest, light a sacred fire, and say a mystical prayer for the safety of his congregation. Whenever this was done, catastrophe would be averted.

Over time, this sacred knowledge was forgotten until there came a time that the village was again endangered, but the rabbi did not know what to do. He stood alone and cried out “I do not know the place in the forest, or the way to light the fire. I do not know the words of the prayer. All I know is the story of how these things were once done.” And, Wiesel wrote, that memory was enough.

In a sense, “Tablets Shattered” can be read as an argument against Wiesel’s Hasidic tale. Joshua Leifer asserts that the expanded opportunities offered by the United States had the effect of hollowing out American Judaism as immigrant communities (and then their children) became more willing to jettison traditional behaviours and practices in exchange for greater inclusion. As one sociologist notes, “we wanted a melting pot; what we got was a meltdown.”

Leifer observes that traditional Jewish identity was eroded by greater personal security (discrimination existed but was usually not violent), greater opportunities for upward mobility (but in exchange for giving up practices such as not working on the Sabbath) and in 1948, the birth of the state of Israel.

Israel’s creation provided American Jews with a means of Jewish identification that “required little daily activity or commitment. In the place of the Torah, or of the commandments, all it asked of American Jews was that they feel a sense of closeness to Israel …. Unlike the obligated life prescribed by traditional observance, this Zionism conformed fully to the liberal voluntarist pattern of American Life.”

Similarly, remembering the Holocaust and drawing lessons from it could, similarly be done with as much or as little energy as one wished to devote to it.

While I disagree with Leifer’s position on Israel, I think his observation that support of the Jewish state is easier to manage than the “obligated life” of traditional observance is valid.

Shattered Tablets considers a variety of responses to the eroding of Jewish life in America. Not surprisingly, he views Orthodox Judaism as being the most likely to resist the trend. He writes that the non-Orthodox community “picked and chose which rituals worked and which did not. We fit Judaism into the mold of a liberal, secularized, Americanized lifestyle according to no coherent logic …. They, by contrast, made Judaism the center of their lives.”

What comes next? Leifer did not set out to find answers, but rather to understand the question. Towards the end of book, though, he reminds us of an essay by Simon Rawidowicz in which he noted that “each Jewish generation imagines itself to be the last.” But, he continued, “there is always another, however unrecognizable it may be to its predecessors, that follows.”

We may indeed be seeing the “end of an American Jewish century,” but the future is ours to make.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a fun book, really, but it is probably the most relevant thing I have ever read about modern American Judaism as much of what holds the entire existence of the group together is rapidly disintegrating. It was mostly written before Oct. 7 (Leifer went back and fit in some discussion of the attacks before publication, and deals with it in the afterward) but seems even more germane because of them.

Even Jews who mark themselves by their non-Zionism, he argues convincingly, still mostly wrap their identity around Israel. He articulates with painful clarity the moral failure of the mainstream Jewish community to grapple with Israel's military response, as well as with the decades of policy that made some climactic violent explosion basically inevitable. Leifer also shows how the anti-Zionist Jewish community failed the rest to have a moral response as Jews to the attacks themselves (going along with schadenfreude that marked the response of the broader left), further constricting the space for those seeking a genuinely humane way forward.

Less immediately devastating, but still heartbreaking in its way, is Leifer's discussion of how difficult it is to maintain something akin to the Jewish identity that existed over the last century in a modern consumerist society like the US. As reform and conservative communities bent over backwards to ask less of their constituents to convince them not to melt away entirely, they in essence destroyed the rationale for their existence at all. If there is nothing particularly important about Judaism itself, then what you're left with is am experiential product competing with yoga classes and and immersive tourism. (And those other things are just more fun. This is a point about religion that my other favorite write about modern religion, Meghan O'Gieblyn, has made about Christianity, too.)

The logical endpoint to this kind of a la carte liberal religion is a kind of Scottishness, where Jews blow the shofar every once in a while in the way that some Scottish people wear kilts once or twice a year. (This is his comparison. I have no idea about Scottish people, so maybe it's grossly unfair...)

The one area where Leifer does kind real vitality is in the ultra-orthodox communities. Ironically, liberal Jews have often seen those communities as caught in the past and destined for irrelevance. But their all-in experience ends up being sticky in a unique way. Leifer, who is religious himself, finds some real things to admire about these communities, even if he recoils as the inherently illiberal aspects and finds them too much in tension with his own humanism.

Ultimately, this leaves Leifer feeling melancholy, and the book ends with grim discussions of the post Oct 7 political landscape and the need to manage decline that faces the American Jewry that has existed for the last century. As I said, not a fun book.

[Lisa Rosenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a wonderful job of tracking the trajectory of American Jewish identity through the 20st century and I highly recommend it for that alone. This is a book about Jewishness, not about Israel, though the latter certainly comes into play.

Consider Leifer's thesis that identification with Israel did not become central to American Jewish identity until the national pull of both the 6 days war and the Yom Kippur war. This followed years of assimilation into liberal American culture where Jewish religious practice was diminishing in scope. Leifer describes how Zionism began to become a placeholder for religious affiliation. In other words, the test of one's Jewish identity among the majority of American Jews became supporters of Israel rather than keeping of the commandments.

Leifer takes us all the way through the 20th Century, beginning with his great-grandmother Bessie who immigrated at the turn of the century, from the age where America's doors were open to Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in Russia (this was my grandfather's story), to 1924 when the open door policy ended, to WWII, the establishment of Israel as a Jewish State, the post-war 1950's, taking us through the evolution of Jewish identity and the isms that have influenced it: Liberalism, Americanism, Zionism, as well as others factors: intellectualism, assimilation, the pull of feminism and LGBTQ inclusion. He includes his own personal story, being a child in a conservative NJ yeshiva, gaining awareness of alternative experiences when he was put into public school in 6th grade, traveling to Israel as a young student, learning first-hand about the circumstances of the Palestinian people, their relationship to Israel.

(The book was complete just before 10/7, but the author devotes the afterward to an assessment of the role of progressive Jews in the aftermath.)

As a secular Jew who identifies more with Jewishness--the food, culture, humor and history, than with the practice of Judaism as a religion, I found this book fascinating, though it encompassed so much, it did take a while to get through.

Leifer condemns Israel's treatment of the Palestinians before and after 10/7, though he grieves for all who were massacred and taken hostage on that date. He holds himself to a very high standard in terms of his religious practice and connection to Israel, while holding the belief that a two state solution where Palestinians have full rights and both sides achieve self-determination is possible.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

When two people I respect have radically different reactions to the same book, I’m always curious to read it for myself. Joshua Leifer, an editor and journalist for left-wing Jewish publications, intersperses his family’s story and personal Jewish journey with an astute analysis of the history of the Jewish experience in America. He particularly shines a spotlight on what he calls the American Jewish “struggle” with Zionism and the State of Israel. And his prediction for the future of American Judaism is not very optimistic. Born in the 1990’s, Leifer’s theory is that while Israel and Zionism unified American Jews during his grandparent’s and parent’s generations, that collective purpose is weakening. He is particularly critical of mainstream Jewish organizations and their failure to reach and connect with his generation and younger American Jews. Even though I didn’t agree with all of his opinions and conclusions, and his use of the term “Israel/Palestine” grated on me, I found the book as a whole to be extremely interesting, informative, and provocative. And I’m fascinated by both the positive and negative buzz it has received since it was published over the summer. For example, Gil Troy, in Commentary, calls it “an anti-Zionist screed hiding behind a thought-provoking analysis of American Jewry.” On the other hand, Rabbi Marc Katz for the Jewish Book Council is more conciliatory: “Though many readers may be challenged by his perspective, Leifer is articulate and thoughtful in his critiques. For anyone who wants to understand the perspective of many younger Jews, Tablets Shattered represents their thinking well. It captures how disillusioned many feel with Israel’s policies and the American Jewish establishment’s refusal to see those flaws.” And I completely agree with Peter Ephross in Hadassah Magazine: “Tablets Shattered has its flaws. Its tone, at times, is suffused with youthful righteousness . . . As a result of these weaknesses, many readers committed to Zionism and the American Jewish world will be tempted to dismiss this book. Such a cursory dismissal would miss the mark. Despite those flaws, this is a passionate, clearly written and argued book by a candid young intellectual who cares deeply about the Jewish future . . . American Jews, particularly those who care about the younger generation, will ignore this book at their own peril.” Like Ephross, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to work to ensure that the future of American Judaism doesn’t turn out to be as bleak and hopeless as Liefer suggests.

[riti aggarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

To an extent, reading this book felt like reading something that isn't meant for me. The focus on the culture, the diaspora- it all feels so fickle when there's a genocide going on. Identity struggle/cultural displacement/woe over assimilation feels so privileged... it feels wrong that space is taken up by this discourse as Palestinians die.

And that's because it's a lie. The Jewish left and Pro-Palestinian voices can exist alongside each other. All of us who come from problematic, majoritarian communities that have been oppressed in the past and are now oppressors know this- we love who we love, even if they hate who we support. It is uncomfortable, it is against the orthodoxy of the chronically online left to proclaim this- but it is true. Cognitive dissonance is the name of the term, sure, but sometimes dissonance is survival, it is deliberate- we live, laugh and love alongside those we vehemently disagree with, because being human is about hope, resilience and longing.

I was going to give this four stars until I read the afterword on October 7. It's the sort of genuine, nuanced take that will send leftists into a diatribe because Leifer's complex feelings and the space he makes for grieving Israeli hostage lives, will not pass their litmus test for anti-Zionism. And as someone who posted an Instagram story calling Israel an ethnostate just yesterday- I have to wonder, when did progressive politics become about being as hateful and vitriolic as possible? Isn't it unsustainable?

I know it's blasé to focus on the actionability of something in leftist circles today- but when we condemn all that's Israeli, and everything that's Israeli by equating all strands of Zionism with each other, and call people living in a state they had no choice being born into supporters of apartheid, occupation or genocide- we're prioritizing sounding morally right over helping anyone. Reading this book is the first step toward building momentum- building coalitions- doing the WORK.

We're in the throes of a storm- the Pro-Palestinian movement and the intense support it's been able to muster globally, is the first of many causes we'll unite around as capitalism, the West- basically all this performance we've been suspended in for centuries, collapse. Am I making it sound big? Because it is. Something is slowly broiling under the surface... and the patterns here are ripe ground to catch it, and refine it. Our success depends on it.

[ariela lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves a review far more thoughtful than the one I’m about to give. I recommend everyone read it and then please discuss with me.
First, Josh Leifer is very very similar to me in nearly every biographical and ideological sense. I’m usually skeptical of authors like that but I happened to read this book at a time when I felt like I needed any company I could get. I found Leifer to be a very empathetic and compassionate guide but I don’t know if readers of other stripes of life would agree.
Second, the history, the description, the writing, the analysis of the past — all spot on. His portrayal of Jewish New York and its characters and settings will resonate with anyone who has some knowledge of this world, and he earns a lot of trust in this manner. This is a book by a Jew for Jews (but not necessarily exclusively) and the historical chapters are a joy to read.
Third, and here comes the disclaimer, if one were to imagine their pre-Oct. 7 self reading this book, Leifer’s prognosis of the present and future of American Judaism is pragmatic and largely constructive. That is, he acknowledges a moment of great change but is generally optimistic that the Jewish community is adapting and evolving to a rapidly changing society. This is because Leifer basically finished writing before Oct. 7. Reading the text now, and reading his obviously inserted additions on the ongoing war, the picture is much bleaker. Without spoiling too much: Leifer was very optimistic of a Jewish Left increasingly conscious of its need to cohesively reconcile Jewish values and traditions with frustrations over the American Jewish “establishment” and the Israeli government. But Oct. 7 fractured the left (as journalists have written about exceedingly) creating a fault line about which Leifer agonizes that he claims not to have noticed before - i.e. during the entire time he was writing the book.
I finished Tablets Shattered and felt very sad for the future of a community. But I now think the “end of days” thesis is a bit overblown. It’s very unfortunate that the post-Oct. 7 fracturing of the Jewish left was so personally inflicting on Leifer. I think his original ideas still hold far more than he allows himself credit.